The number of homes and businesses using personal computers has increased substantially in recent years, and along with this increase has come an explosion in the use of the Internet, and particularly the World-Wide Web. The World-Wide Web is a collection of formatted hypertext pages located on numerous computers around the world that are logically connected by the Internet. Although "the Web" has in the past been a source of primarily scientific information, it is now a valuable resource for information relating to almost any subject, including business, entertainment, travel, and education, to name just a few. Advances in network technology, and especially in software such as "Web browsers" (software applications which provide a user interface to the Web), have made the Web accessible to a large segment of the population. However, despite the growth in the development and use of the Web, many people are still unable to take advantage of this important resource.
Access to the Web has thus far been limited to people who have access to a personal computer. Yet many people cannot afford the cost of even a relatively inexpensive personal computer, while others are unable or unwilling to learn the basic computer skills that are required to access the Web. Furthermore, Web browsers in the prior art generally do not provide the degree of user-friendliness desired by some people who lack computer experience, and many computer novices do not have the patience to learn how to use the software. Some people, for example, dislike an interface which requires them to identify hypertext objects and use the point-and-click technique to browse through Web pages.
Most people, however, feel quite comfortable using a remote control to operate a television set. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a means by which a person can access the World-Wide Web without the use of a personal computer. In particular, it would be desirable for a person to be able to access and navigate through Web pages using an ordinary television set and a remote control. It would further be desirable to have a user interface by which a person can use a remote control to navigate between hypertext objects on a Web page with minimal effort or thought, so that a person feels more as if he or she is simply changing television channels rather than utilizing a complex computer network.
Prior art Web browsers also have certain limitations in the way they allow a user to move between Web sites. Browsing the Web can be thought of as moving forward and backward through various levels of a tree hierarchy. Each level in the tree represents a Web page. Since each Web page can have many hypertext links to other pages, a level in the tree can have many branches. Selecting a hypertext object, therefore, is analogous to moving down one level in the tree, whereas returning to the previous Web page is analogous to moving up one level in the tree. Prior art Web browsers generally provide a "Back" function for moving up one level to a previously visited Web page and a "Forward" function for moving down one level to a previously visited Web page. There is no ambiguity for the user when moving up a level in the tree, since there is always only one immediately prior Web page. However, there is often ambiguity when moving down one level to a previously visited level, since there may be many branches from the current level. This ambiguity can cause confusion to the user. Further, if the user wishes to return to where he was after having backed up by several levels, he generally must remember the sequence of hypertext objects he selected to get there and then retrace his steps exactly. Remembering this sequence can be an arduous task if the user has visited many Web pages. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide browsing functions such as "Back," "Forward," and others, in a manner which is more intuitive and which simplifies the user's task when browsing.
Another problem associated with the prior art is that, in some cases, images which are downloaded via a network connection are not appropriately sized for the display being used. One prior art solution for dealing with Web pages larger than the display is to allow horizontal and vertical scrolling. However, it has been found that horizontal scrolling can be confusing to many people. Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a solution to displaying oversized image maps which eliminates the need for horizontal scrolling.
In addition, Web browsers in the prior art have various other disadvantages which are overcome by the present invention, as described in the detailed description which follows.